If You Want Blood
by Mytay
Summary: All of S.H.I.E.L.D.'s secrets are out, and Tony Stark knows. He knows that the car crash that killed his parents was no accident. He knows the names. He's going to find those names. The good Captain was welcome along for the ride, but Tony knew how he expected this to end – and Steve Rogers could either lend a hand, or stand aside.
1. Thunderstruck

**If You Want Blood**

**By: **Mytay

**Rating: **PG-13 for some swearing, and later on, some violence.

**Summary: **All of S.H.I.E.L.D.'s secrets are out, and Tony knows. The car crash that killed his parents was no accident. Tony has names. He's going to find those names. The good Captain was welcome along for the ride, but Tony knew how he expected this to end – and Steve Rogers could either lend a hand, or stand aside.

**Disclaimer: **Marvel and its characters in no way belong to me – Disney owns almost all of my childhood. The story and chapter titles belong to songs by AC/DC.

**Spoilers: **For _Captain America: The Winter Soldier_, if somehow you haven't seen that yet.

**Notes: **I really wanted to see Tony's reaction to the revelation that his parents were murdered, as I can't imagine that he would find out and then let it lie.

* * *

**Chapter 1: Thunderstruck**

* * *

"Sir, Captain Rogers is on the line."

Tony stared down at the full glass of whiskey. It sat untouched. It had sat untouched for the last few hours or so.

When his usual monitoring programs on S.H.I.E.L.D. went quiet, Tony had not considered this event to be odd – S.H.I.E.L.D. periodically discovered his viruses, wiped them, and then Tony would wait an appropriate amount of time before sic'ing JARVIS on them once more.

But not today.

Today, everything was thrown like a grenade onto the Internet, exploding with earth-shattering force and shaking out darker conspiracies than Tony, for all his cynicism, had ever imagined.

"Put him through." Tony leaned back in his chair, staring at the ceiling. "You're still kicking around, old man."

"Stark." Rogers' hoarse voice came through as though he was standing in the room. Tony would like to entirely credit his fabulous sound system, but the good Captain had a clear, ringing voice meant to be heard across a battlefield. "We need you."

"Rogers, I think we're past that now." Tony looked back at the kill order on the screen nearest him. A car accident, faulty engineering, no tampering discovered. Tony had designed some of the best engine and fuel systems on the planet as penance for his mother and father's deaths; he had inexplicably felt at fault and made up for it by revolutionizing automotive engine safety standards. "I take it that this latest clusterfuck is one of yours?"

There was a pause. "How much do you know?"

"Oh, I'm hazy on the details, but the Coles' Notes version tells me we've got no more S.H.I.E.L.D., maybe never had a S.H.I.E.L.D., Nick Fury is dead – not that I believe that bullshit for a _second – _and Hydra took your heroic sacrifice and shoved it up all our asses."

_Faulty fucking engineering. _Tony's hands were bloodless as they clenched the armrests of his chair. Quite abruptly, the full glass of whiskey was shattering against the wall. Tony was standing up, his chest tight, and the mass of scar tissue pulling painfully along with his heavy breathing.

"Tony." He was fairly certain he had never heard Rogers say his first name more than once, and it sounded bizarre. It sounded like _empathy, _and he didn't want to hate Rogers for it because the Captain was one of the few who would be itching with the same _disgust, _the fucking _rage _over the fact that this had all been happening under their noses – and Rogers would be feeling worse about it than Tony was, because he'd actually lost _his life_ for this and it was all for _nothing. _"We took out a lot of them."

"Sitwell? Pierce?" The latter had been one of the big names, and Tony had met the man once, had shaken his hand. Had joked about Nick Fury being all-seeing with him. He stared down at his bottle of whiskey and contemplated throwing that too.

"Dead."

Tony nodded sharply to himself. "There's more, too many damn more that need tracking down."

The Captain went quiet there. "I know. I have one in particular I need to find."

"I've got a few specific names I'd like to add to that list." Tony breathed out slowly. "But first we need to make sure our people are in the clear. Natasha's going to be dealing with a lot of heat. And you, Captain, where are you right now?"

"Hospital. Got knocked around and fell from a Helicarrier."

Tony grimaced as he remembered walking through that hanger, giving those wide-eyed engineers some repulsor specs, and watching the teams scurry about to do his bidding. That was _his_ technology in those fucking Nazi death machines. He could barely keep his meagre breakfast down while thinking about that fact.

He then frowned because the Captain was in the _hospital? _"What in the hell, Rogers? You barely needed more than an afternoon nap after New York."

"I should be out soon." The hoarseness was stronger now as he raised his voice, and then there was another voice, scolding in its tone as it said, "_Hey Cap, ease up, you're gonna get us in trouble."_

"Well, I don't think you've got much in the way of S.H.I.E.L.D. benefits covering that now," Tony said drily. He was already typing away. "But you do have a Stark with a bottomless bank account."

While in the process of wiring the money to the appropriate medical institutions and insurance companies, he happened to glance at the Captain's chart. _Jesus. _He'd been unconscious for hours with the mother of all concussions, broken a few ribs, inhaled half the Potomac, and been stabbed and shot in _several _places.

Tony's fingers flew furiously across the keys as Rogers protested, "Don't. It's not necessary, I have the money."

"Already done. Got three law firms on tap as of a minute ago, and I'm planning on hauling ass over there. Clearly, these types of things are my domain."

"Natasha won't accept your lawyers."

"She won't have to. She can handle her own statements, and my lawyers will handle the inevitable explosive aftermath." Tony was texting said attorneys and grabbing his coat as he made his way to the elevator. "I'll be there in an hour. Don't move."

There was a sigh, and then, "Got it. I'll be waiting."

* * *

"They want me at that senate subcommittee hearing," Steve began.

"No," Natasha cut him off, sitting in a hospital chair while carefully removing her IV. Steve stared at her with open concern and disapproval.

"I think Cap wants you to keep the drugs, Natasha," Tony said as he tapped away on his phone, handling a barrage of questions from Pepper and his lawyers.

"I think that geniuses that have set the record for signing out AMA should refrain from commenting."

Tony nodded. "This is true, but I was not commenting on your poor decisions, merely pointing out that the Captain appears to object. Also, please don't stab me with that needle."

He watched Steve and Natasha battle it out silently for a moment, but soon they were smiling, and Steve was apparently yielding. Natasha pushed the IV stand away from her as she settled back more comfortably in her chair.

"Cap, there's a whole host of reasons why you may need to deal with the fallout at some later point, but right now, _I _need to handle it." Natasha looked towards Tony. "Stark, you can send them on the run-around, keep them off Steve."

"Been doing that since before the plane touched down," Tony said. The number of phone calls his publicist was wrangling at the moment truly boggled the mind – it matched, if not surpassed, the insanity of the day that Tony announced that he was the crazy asshole flying around in the suit. Pepper had her own team of people handling anything related to the company, including the not-so-discrete firing and arresting of planted Hydra agents. Tony was once again in awe of how incredibly adaptable she managed to be, giving the press nothing and acting blasé about the fact that S.H.I.E.L.D. had been a terrifyingly powerful haven for war criminals. He expected an explosion the next time he saw her face-to-face, but at least he could honestly claim no fault in this one.

"They're going to want more than a statement or an appearance at a hearing," Sam Wilson cut in. Tony was already accepting his presence as a handy asset, and he could see how much Steve liked the soldier. Natasha respected the other man too, and that was a bright neon sign stating _Avenger Material. _"They're going to want him to _do something _about all this. People joke about Steve running for President, but I wouldn't be surprised if they ask him to take over the revived S.H.I.E.L.D., or whatever the hell they plan on creating to act as the new super-spy organization."

Natasha sighed. Steve shrugged. "I'll deal with that if it ever comes up, but I'm not going to waste energy thinking about it now."

The Avengers were going to have to be a full-time gig in the interim. Tony had been doing a lot of thinking in the past couple of hours; it had amounted to them, present Avengers and absent ones, filling as much of the crater that Steve had left behind when he obliterated S.H.I.E.L.D. as they could. The Avengers could stand alone, answerable only to the highest authority, and even if a new organization sprang up and Nick Fury rose up from the ashes to run it (Steve was blank-faced when Fury was mentioned, and Natasha flatly stated that he was dead, but Tony _knew _the one-eyed bastard was out there), the Avengers would remain separate.

"That isn't going to happen anytime soon," Tony said, leaving his current plans to be explained later. "Both the CIA and FBI are more than happy to take over and beat the snot out of the Nazi sympathizers. Steve is the Captain that everyone from grunt to general would follow into death and dismemberment" – Tony ignored the surprised look Steve gave him – "but he isn't going to start his own spy-op."

"No, I'm not," Steve agreed, flicking a quick smile in Natasha's direction. "It's not my kind of business."

"The priority is keeping them from throwing you in Guantanamo." Tony turned to Natasha, who blinked back at him, one eyebrow arched. "What? You're scarier than most scary things, but you don't think they're at least going to try?" he asked, raising his own eyebrows back at her.

"Not when they need me to round up the ones that got away – you can't tell me anyone else will be able to do it. And Hydra is not our biggest concern. There's more coming our way. Thor's little diversion in London should have made that obvious enough. They need me, they need Steve, they need you, Stark. We're not above the law, but I will make it very clear that it would be stupid to pretend that any of us is better off in whatever prison they think would hold us."

Which was all very true and not far from Tony's own line of thinking.

A new message cropped up on his phone. "That hearing is being scheduled for late afternoon tomorrow," Tony told the room at large. "Natasha, I presume you're not going to want my army of legal badasses at your back?"

"I'm enough of a badass all on my own, thank you," she said politely. "And they all know it. No one is going to touch me."

"Right, so, I'll have someone ready to go and defend everything you're about to unleash on the committee – wanna give said counsel a bit of a heads-up before you do?" Tony waved his phone at her. "Really, you'd be doing me a favour. I'm the one they're going to bitch to about how much spin and legal bullshit they'll need to churn out."

"I live to do you favours, Stark – like that time I saved your ass from your own poison."

"Excuse you, you _stabbed _me in the neck, and then _I _created a brand new element," Tony immediately countered.

"That's a story that begs to be told," Steve said, smiling at them both. The bruises were already fading, but the cuts remained stark against his skin.

"I feel like I'm so normal compared to all of you," Sam said. "And I don't know what that means considering I've only met the all-human component of the Avengers. What are the Norse god and the Hulk like?"

"Jolly and green, respectively," Tony said with a grin. Natasha rolled her eyes, but her mouth was upturned, and Steve snorted quietly, but Tony heard him.

"Right." Sam gave a small chuckle, and then he took a moment to face Steve. "What are you gonna need from us, Captain?"

Steve looked over to Tony, and his bruised jaw clenched tightly before he spoke, "Just be ready. There's more out there than we can predict, and Hydra hasn't been totally wiped off the map." There was a hollowness to his eyes, and while Tony could relate to the feeling, he couldn't quite empathize with the source since it was one of those things someone had to actually _experience _in order to understand.

Natasha had given him an extremely perfunctory summation of the events surrounding the Winter Soldier. It was betrayal, but not on the part of Barnes, and it was heartbreak, but not one that Steve could ever have anticipated or that Barnes could have prevented. It was a lousy set of circumstances, and it seemed, to Tony, that Captain America was doomed to have his stand-up, can-do attitude forever tested by increasingly worse challenges. At what point would the good soldier lie down and accept his fate?

If the look in his eyes was anything to go by, not any time soon. That emptiness spoke of carefully restrained agony, but that restraint was ultimately a survival mechanism, and surviving was what Steve did best. Tony and the Captain appeared to have something in common after all.

"I'm gonna let you have your space, Rogers. You know how to reach me." Tony wiggled his phone in the air, and he pointedly looked towards the phone charging at Steve's bedside. "Wilson, it was nice to make your acquaintance, and please let me know when I can have a look at those wings. Natasha, lovely as per usual. Thanks for not stabbing me or rendering me unconscious."

"You're welcome, Tony," she said pleasantly. "Give Pepper my sincerest apologies for the mess."

Steve nodded at him, and it seemed he could spare enough energy to give Tony a somewhat gratitude filled expression before going back to concentrating on surviving another day.

* * *

**Author's Notes: **Hello Avengers/Marvel fandom! *waves* We've got some good times ahead of us :D (Just finished watching the _Daredevil_ show on Netflix,and I loved it.)

The goal is to get this out before I go watch _Avengers: Age of Ultron_ this weekend, which means posting a chapter a day. Hopefully, it can be done, as I've completed my exams and have some free time :)

Thanks to anyone reading! Any comments, criticisms or questions are welcome and would be nice, as I've never attempted to post a story in such a brief period of time before. Please make sure your private messaging is turned on if you're a member of this website so that I can reply back to you. If it all goes to plan, see y'all tomorrow!


	2. Dirty Deeds Done Dirt Cheap

**Chapter 2: Dirty Deeds Done Dirt Cheap**

* * *

Tony was fairly sure that Sergeant James Buchanan Barnes had not killed his parents.

While the Winter Soldier had been a ghost with a staggering amount of legendary kills reputed to be his, that ghost could only be in so many places. Barnes had been carefully eliminating several higher-up members of the Chinese Communist party at the same time that Tony's parents crashed their luxury BMW E24 635. (Tony had examined the wreckage of the car himself, then he'd taken apart a fully functional BMW of the same line; he'd never found any discrepancies, _why, what had he missed?_). Winter Soldier had spent his Christmas vacation over in mainland China – as far removed from Howard and Maria Stark as he could be. Hydra had used other means – other operatives – to arrange for an accident on the seventeenth of December 1991.

It was for that reason, and that reason only, that Tony had forwarded details on Barnes' potential locations to the Captain. Rogers had a file, one Natasha had been so kind to acquire for him; Tony had everything else. He had his satellites, his own contacts, his AI that was smarter than most geniuses, and his knack for viruses that retrieved information. Steve needed all the help he could get – Barnes may not be the Winter Soldier anymore, but he was definitely still a ghost. Tony respected Steve's need to track down that ghost and to finally lay it to rest.

As for his own 'ghosts', all Tony needed was a plan for them. He had been researching for several weeks now, ignoring the constant stream of news as the world continued to reel over each and every secret Hydra had concealed.

Tony thought revenge had too ugly a reputation, and justice was an ideal that was nice to strive for but unrealistic to expect.

He simply wanted to ensure that the rule of cause and effect applied to these people; they had taken something out of the universe, and the universe would balance out the equation. One of them had died years ago, but there were three more he could track down. Three more he _had_ tracked down. He had medical histories, marriage certificates, places of employment, and any parking tickets that remained outstanding. At the moment, he was compiling the last bit of information on his final target, and then his clear and articulated planning could follow.

This process was disrupted by a phone call Tony had not expected to receive.

"Steve's calling?"

"Yes sir, shall I put him through?"

Tony continued to stare at the faces he had memorized weeks ago. "I suppose so. Wouldn't be right to ignore Captain America."

"That's much appreciated, Tony," came Steve's dry reply.

"Hey there, Cap'n, found some Hydra over there in Italy? You'll break my heart if I find out gelato is a Nazi thing."

"There was a small cell hiding under a cannoli place," Steve said with some amusement. "Also, gelato? Really, really good – no way that's a Hydra conspiracy."

"Glad to see that's something you can laugh at now," Tony observed. "Are you needing more intel? You've got all I've got, Rogers – there's nothing else for me to give. Gimmie time and more might make itself apparent."

"Understood. The trail's run cold for now. He's been cleaning up a few ops, but I seem to be getting to them after the deed is done." Steve paused, and the slightly weary tone disappeared when he next spoke. "I called because I know what you're doing. Natasha gave me a heads-up."

"I won't even ask how she knows." She probably had some secret spy superpowers . . . or she had just talked to Pepper. Tony suddenly realized he hadn't been too subtle with his CEO; he'd told her he would be taking a month or so off to deal with some 'newly unfinished business' and to not expect any contact until said business was concluded.

"Cap, do not start in on the whole grand _truth-justice-honour before all else_ speech. I'm doing this for –"

"I understand. I want to help."

Tony stumbled over his last few words. "For my-myself and – wait, what?"

"Howard was my friend, Tony. He was a good man and someone else that Hydra took from me." Steve's voice was flat. "Bucky's trail has gone cold for now. Let me help get the bastards that did this. For Howard."

"But what about the whole _truth-justice-honour _whatever –"

"Tony, tell me where to meet you. I'm on a jet halfway to the States. I'll be landing in JFK in a few hours."

He glanced at the clock sitting on his desk. The digital display read 14:00. "I can be there in time to meet you. Then we take a flight over to Washington. There's a man there. One of three on my list." There had been four directly responsible, but Ferdinand Holtz had died of liver failure two and a half years ago, leaving behind a grieving widow and a stepson who apparently thought the world of his stepfather. Tony would not shatter the illusion; a good father was hard to come by. Since Holtz was dead, any further action would only punish those who were both innocent and ignorant of his past.

"Copy that. I'll let you take the lead on this. We'll talk more when I land."

Tony gave a sound of acknowledgement and then hung up.

He wasn't sure what was happening, but somehow his plans were increasing in complication despite his meticulous calculations. He stared at his screens, at the information glowing out from them, and hardened his resolve. The good Captain was welcome along for the ride, but Tony knew how he expected this to end – and Steve Rogers could either lend a hand, or stand aside.

* * *

Eliot Nizar was not his real name, but he was Syrian, formerly a member of the Arab Deterrent Force and briefly stationed in Lebanon. He took on a name that matched his cultural background, though he hadn't set foot in Syria since the mid-1980s and held no particular allegiance to his country of birth.

He had a comfortable living, a house that was beautiful but not ostentatious or grandiose. It was protected by security systems typically used in government buildings, and he had since added attacks dogs and hired a few thugs to discretely stand guard at varying distances.

He was planning on leaving the country the day after Tony and Steve landed in Seattle. Nizar would have left earlier, but Tony had put a freeze on his assets. The bank apologized for this mistake only that morning, and now Nizar was packing.

Nizar must have thought he had time, since it was his birth name released onto the World Wide Web in the great S.H.I.E.L.D. scandal, not his alias of the last twenty odd years. Tony had found that alias, and afterwards it had been all too easy to follow the forged identities and the bank accounts in the Caiman Islands to Seattle, Washington.

"Who is he, exactly?" Steve asked. They were sitting in a café several blocks from Nizar's house.

"He's someone that blends in easily, had multiple aliases while working for the, uh" – Tony paused as a waiter passed them by – "people we didn't know about until recently." Tony watched the waiter smile and laugh at a young boy that demanded 'fries with nugents'.

Steve took a gulp of his coffee, staring down into the mug afterwards as he asked, "And what did he do?"

"He was their inside man, so to speak. He'd been working for Stark Industries for about a year and a half before the accident. Made himself invaluable as a P.A. to the head of Research and Development at the time."

"He wasn't the one who tampered with the engine?" When Steve looked up, his expression was difficult to parse. Tony wasn't sure what to do with the indifferent tone of voice either.

"Work was too sophisticated for his skill set. He greased all the wheels, metaphorically speaking, and left all the doors unlocked, literally."

Steve nodded. "Got it. What's our plan?"

Tony had been waiting for this question, and he launched into his ready-made explanation. "We go in, tonight. Wait for him to set the alarm, and then I bypass all his systems and we enter through the garage. Aside from a few pigeonhole cameras he's installed himself – which I can also access and bypass – there shouldn't be any problems. Which is, of course, inviting the irony gods to come down and smite us, but we're used to that by now, aren't we?"

Tony immediately regretted that statement as a shadow crossed the Captain's face. Barnes must be on his mind constantly, and never mind the enormity of what S.H.I.E.L.D. had been doing all these long years . . . But then the shadow passed, and Rogers smiled a little bit. "So, let's flip them the bean."

"The bird, Captain."

Rogers half-shrugged. "That too. Also, how does that make any more sense?"

Tony felt his mouth quirk up involuntarily, and Steve gave him that small smile in return.

That brief flare of warm camaraderie faded as soon as night descended. Tony hovered a few miles away from Nizar's home, JARVIS keeping him informed about the movements of his dogs, his bodyguards, and of the Captain working his way around them. The guards checked in with each other every ten minutes, and it was only when Steve got within a hundred feet of the house that he finally encountered one he had to knock out.

Tony immediately patched into their comms and issued the 'all clear' from the unconscious guard at the appropriate time. Steve got to the wire box and followed Tony's simple and concise instructions.

"Bingo." Tony inhaled sharply. "A closed system is only as good as the locks you keep on it."

"You couldn't have broken in over the Internet?" Steve asked, sounding mildly curious and not at all winded. Tony had to wonder at what it would take to get him to sound out of breath; he had watched him execute some fairly spectacular acrobatics while getting around the guards. He would say he was impressed, but Steve would only shrug off the compliments.

Actually, Tony_ had_ seen Steve out of breath. The Captain had been overwhelmed by Loki's army, but he held down the front like it would take at least another three armies to get him to lie down. Apparently, being shot a few times and falling off a helicarrier could get him to rest for a day. Not a bad soldier to have at your back.

Tony answered the Captain's question, shaking off half formed theories as well as the sudden desire to design Rogers far better armour than what S.H.I.E.L.D. had made for him.

"A closed system means no signals being broadcasted out, nothing for me to piggyback on unless I'm directly connected. And since you've done that for me, keep a weather eye open – I'm coming in."

Steve blinked in surprise upon seeing Tony swoop in near silently. They hadn't seen each other since their lunch debrief, hiding away until their mission commenced. "That's not the usual armour."

Tony grinned, always happy to show off his genius because he was a _genius_, first off, and secondly, he was damn proud of his latest creation. It was sleek, it was soundless, and it could conceal itself in the way S.H.I.E.L.D. helicarriers could – only _better. _The heat emissions were a problem, but he had worked out a solution that was satisfactory in a work-in-progress kind of way. It wasn't perfect, but it was enough to fool run-of-the-mill heat sensors.

The only downside was the boring colour scheme – a black that didn't shine, even in direct light – but it was necessary.

"So in another words," Steve said, after Tony had explained all this (while simultaneously wiring himself to Nizar's security systems), "you're The Invisible Man."

"As near to as you can get without magic," Tony agreed. "Or without being a scary red-headed assassin."

Steve's small smile was back, though his eyes were scanning the perimeter every few seconds, and Tony could almost feel the way Steve was straining his hearing to catch any sign of trouble. Tony still had JARVIS patching the all-clear every ten minutes from Sleepy over by the garage entrance, the guard carefully concealed and out of anyone's path.

It wouldn't last forever. Tony had to get in before anyone alerted Nizar and sent him on the run. If Tony gave chase, stealth suit or no, it would likely become a noisy affair. And if that happened, it would end up on the news where one or both of the other two conspirators might see Iron Man acting with extreme prejudice, possibly alerting them to Tony tracking them down. Tony preferred all his targets to be unaware of what awaited them.

"We're in," he said briskly once JARVIS gave the all-clear for a third time. He didn't repeat the plan to Steve – he knew he didn't have to. Tony moved slowly – the suit was the least bulky of all his suits, but it still added about fifty pounds to his frame. He got into the house through the garage door, and then he set himself hovering to eliminate the sound of his heavy steps. Steve glanced at him, blinking rapidly as he observed Tony's armour in better lighting.

"Damn impressive. I know how loud those things usually are." He nodded at Tony's boots and gloves.

Tony had to smirk at that even as everything in him tensed. He was looking at a framed picture of Nizar on the wall over the fireplace, Nizar in the centre of a group of laughing friends, all of them raising glasses of wine up high.

"Nizar is in his bedroom, sir." JARVIS gave him a layout of the house, which Tony had long since memorized but he appreciated the reminder.

"Up we go, Cap." Tony let Steve handle covering his back as he moved on towards the stairs, scanning everything as he went. There was no hired muscle inside the house. Nizar enjoyed his privacy.

This personality trait did the man no favours when Iron Man and Captain America simply walked into his bedroom. The look on his face would have been comical, but Tony was finding himself without a sense of humour for the first time in a long while.

"Hello there, Nizar. Jack Dweck is who I'm looking for, the name you used for a time a few decades back, so that's what I'm going to call you from here on out." Tony took off his helmet as he spoke. He watched as Nizar-now-Dweck glanced frantically towards his panic button. But Tony had already disabled that function, and he pointed at where it was concealed by the foot of the bed. "Go ahead. No one's going to hear you. Pay attention, because I'm going to give you two choices. You have certain death on one end, and a long, long stay in prison at the other."

Dweck blinked, mouth opening and a whole lot of stupid pouring forth. "Mr. Stark, there's nothing between you and me, I can't possibly be a target for the Avengers. There isn't any –"

"You are going to shut up because death is getting closer and closer to being your only option." Tony stepped forward and then stopped. He didn't trust himself to get within arm's length of the bastard. He could kill him in a hundred different ways – most of them he didn't even have to fly out to Seattle for – but there was something so viscerally tempting about just _getting his hands on him. _Steve closed the distance for him, standing to the right of Dweck, ready to pin him down if necessary.

Tony was increasingly grateful for the other man's presence. He took time to gather his thoughts, calming his nerves. Dweck was a gray-haired man in his sixties, but he was clearly well muscled and healthy, even with wrinkles indicating natural aging. He was a classy dresser, his house decorated in a tastefully modern style with hints of more traditional American ideals in the brick fireplace and light wooden floors.

These details were nonsense, meaningless to Tony, but cataloguing them helped him focus.

"One: I give information about how many of the heavy weapons you collected in Lebanon ended up sold to anyone with the cash, on either side of that conflict, and then I send you to whichever side is more pissed off. In those prisons, I'm sure you'd be dead inside a year. Or maybe they'd just shoot you outright." Tony watched the man's face drain of colour. "Two: I hand you over to the FBI with a nice, fat folder of all your _domestic _crimes, evidence neatly tagged and organized, and you live the rest of your life in a prison where you might stand a chance of living a longer, miserably confined life."

"W-Why? Why are you doing this to me? I have retired from my previous work and lived an untroubled life for years." His hands shook, weathered and calloused, as they reached for him imploringly. Begging.

Tony looked at Steve. All he received in return was a blank stare.

"I'm doing this because you denied my father a chance to be a better a man, and you took my mother down with him. If you're looking for sympathy from the man you made an orphan or" – he nodded towards Steve – "the man whose friend you helped murder, you're talking to the wrong crowd. Maybe the firing squad back home will be kinder."

Dweck's breathing wheezed out of him, and Tony waited, his hands curling into fists. His father had died instantly upon impact, the coroner's report said. His mother had bled out. It had taken the emergency crews seventeen minutes to reach them. For seventeen minutes his mother had lain in confusion, in pain, strapped in next to her dead husband.

His hands shook as they whipped out from his sides, his fingers clawing into Dweck's shoulders, the suit giving him added strength; capillaries were bursting beneath his fingers, Dweck was crying, and Steve wasn't saying anything.

Tony lifted the man from the bed, staring at his wet and wrinkled face. He dropped him, hard, onto the floor and stepped back before he could change his mind.

"Make your call, Dweck."

Eliot Nizar, now also known as Jack Dweck, was arrested by the FBI in the morning.

Tony watched him get shoved into a van as his house was swarmed with navy blue jackets, the news reporting it as yet another arrest made in the Hydra scandal. Tony's fingers ached with punches they hadn't thrown, with the sensation of a throat they hadn't gotten to wrap themselves around.

"Tony, it's time to go," Steve said, his first words in six hours.

Tony nodded without looking back at him and unclenched his fingers, blinking away a haze of red and gray.

Maybe it would be the next one. Maybe the next name on his list would feel the seventeen minutes and two decades worth of pain.

* * *

**Author's Note: **Ah, I think I'm a few minutes late, but here you go! More angst, and my second chapter in as many days. Thank you very much for reading, thank you for following, and see ya tomorrow for yet more angst! :D


	3. Night Prowler

**Chapter 3: Night Prowler**

* * *

"Would you have stopped me if I had sent him back home to die?" Tony knew exactly what the outcome of his actions would have been; he neatly stored what remained of his conscience away for later dealings.

"No." And that was it, plain and simple. But coming from Captain America, it was plainly and simply disturbing.

"Jesus, Steve." Tony did not know what to do with a morally ambiguous Captain America. Not when Tony was on the verge of taking years of pain out on his next target. He'd almost done it to Dweck, and a part of him regretted not doing so.

Steve then helped assuage some of his concern with a softly exhaled breath and further elaboration. "If you had tried to kill him yourself, I would have stopped you. If you hadn't given him a choice, I would have stopped you. But you did give him a choice. He made the right one. It all worked out."

"That's . . . not your usual _modus operandi_."

All he received in return was a faintly curious expression. "What is that to you, Tony? I'm not here to have my motives questioned at every turn – I made my position pretty clear at the start."

He had, but Tony was a little uncomfortable seeing it in action. The man he had fought with in New York had not been this cold, and the man his father had regaled him with stories about had not been this calculated.

It was disconcerting. It was tugging at him in ways he couldn't qualify. And he didn't have time to overanalyze it all right now.

"Okay, Cap – we're off to Spain."

"Sounds nice," Steve said companionably. "And how are we dealing with this one?"

"I've already been dealing with him from a distance. All that's left is the finishing blow."

* * *

Federico Burlington was a quiet man, not unlike Nizar/Dweck had been. Burlington understood what it meant to lay low. He never made extravagant purchases with his considerable wealth; he forwent the use of his formidable assassination skills; he completely cut off all ties with the criminal underground and various spy organizations.

His lovely family, which included his first and only wife (twenty-six years married) and four kids, vacationed at the beach annually. Burlington had elected to stay behind this year.

His stress was killing him, and no wonder, since Tony had been methodically taking his life to pieces.

The man's considerable wealth was being investigated by the A.E.A.T. (the Spanish equivalent of the I.R.S.), who was secretly in cahoots with Interpol; they were using a series of convincing tax-related lies to keep Burlington grounded. Tony knew Burlington had a money stash in a safe on his property, and he made sure that Interpol knew it too.

Burlington's career as an editor in a large publishing house was in jeopardy, as Tony had spitefully sabotaged a few of his works and prevented him from taking on new talent by way of professional slander. His safe deposit box, where Burlington kept the heirlooms of his family, jewellery and letters, had been stolen in a heist, or so the bank claimed – the box had been turned in to Interpol as well.

His legacy was in tatters, his future unclear, and Tony wanted to let the man know exactly_ why. _Tony could have turned over everything all at once, given Interpol everything they needed, but Burlington's crime demanded a slow and systematic destruction.

Hydra had labelled him as Operation Bold's lead agent.

Steve took in this information with a nod. "What are we going to do?"

Tony glanced up from his coffee, pressing his lips together to hold back a shark-like grimace. "He doesn't get a choice in the method of his destruction. It's already done. I just want to be there to see it."

Steve sipped at his own drink. "Who's taking him into custody?"

"Likely Interpol. In this case, I don't have them waiting in the wings. They're close enough to accruing the evidence they need to bring him in. They'll arrest him in a couple of days, possibly sooner. We just need to sit back, wait for the arrest warrant to go out, and then get there before Interpol does. I want a private face-to-face before he goes down." Whether Burlington was alive or not when the agents arrived was largely irrelevant to Tony.

"So we just wait?" Steve glanced around them. "You got any tourist spots we can check out? I've only ever seen a couple of dark alleys, maybe a bar or two, during the war."

Tony raised his cup. "You sure you want to hit the town with me, Cap? It takes a hardy constitution and distinct lack of shame. Like, you need to have been born without the ability to feel shame. It's part of the whole sex, drugs, and rock and roll thing – sorry, if I just offended your old-timer sensibilities."

Steve sighed. "Sex and drugs were not recent inventions – the rock and roll is though." He grinned then, and Tony grinned back without hesitation – he didn't think he'd ever seen the Captain this laid-back before, at least not with him. Also, sex and drugs and Captain America? Tony was so going to dig up more on that later. "Been working my way through the classics. Gone through most of our American legends. I've got a thing for the Brits right now."

"Hell, everyone has a thing for at least one British rock group, most of them were swoon-worthy – you gotta hit up Australia next. And the Canadians, they had a few greats." Tony was already planning on creating a playlist with the only rock and roll songs Steve would ever need to hear.

He glanced down at his watch – six in the evening was early for dinner by Spanish standards, but he could use a good meal right about now, and Steve deserved to see the better side of Spain. "Let's introduce you to some awesome food. I know a great place, and they've never had me thrown out before . . . possibly. Huh, having trouble remembering – there was a crapload of sangria, and somebody's poodle caught on fire. Maybe I should call ahead."

It was actually a little nice to have a brief window of downtime, or it would have been, had Burlington not been tipped off by an old contact. He knew that Interpol was coming to get him.

"Shit, he's going to disappear if we don't get to him first." Tony had JARVIS tracking Burlington's car. The man was making quick stops – the bank, the post office, the electronics store.

Steve's eyes were blank once more. "His last stop will be to get to his safe at home. I say we wait for him there."

* * *

That night, Burlington burst into his living room to find Tony Stark, sans armour, and Steve Rogers, also in civilian clothes but with his shield on one arm, waiting for him.

Tony watched the man take them in, and then turn around quickly, maybe to run. A woman and four children came in even as Burlington tried to tell them to turn back.

"Damn it, Federico, just tell me what is going on!" shouted Burlington's wife, (Miranda, age forty three, Tony recalled), sounding both frazzled and annoyed.

"Nothing, just get back in the car, for God's sake!" he said in return, trying to push them out of the door.

Tony stared at a young boy (remembering that the eldest son was sixteen years old, an honours student, wanted to be a history professor) as he pushed forward, standing in front of his family, between them and Iron Man. His eyes lit upon Captain America's shield, and then he said, "Are you here to help us?"

Steve flinched. Tony didn't.

"No, we're not," he replied back, his own Spanish flawless. "I'm here to speak with your father."

Burlington's face was switching from panicked to dangerous. Tony was not going to let this man get away.

"I have nothing to say to you, Mr. Stark." He had switched to English.

"I think you do," Tony countered in Spanish, because his sadistic streak was not going to be buried this time. "I think an apology might be a start. Insofar as one can apologize for murder."

Miranda whipped around to stare at her husband. Steve immediately moved towards the kids, the youngest being a girl of seven. He smiled brightly at them, and in his own slightly accented Spanish he asked if they wanted to try throwing his shield around. The girl immediately said yes, glancing towards her mother. Miranda nodded once, and Steve gathered the kids, taking them out to the backyard.

The eldest boy refused. Tony mentally flipped through his information on Federico Burlington and found the oldest child's name – Gabriel.

"You were young for a lead agent," Tony said once Steve was gone. "Apparently, you were one of their precious stars."

"Mr. Stark, please," Burlington said, speaking in English again and moving to stand beside his son. "I understand why you are here, but it has been more than twenty years –"

"Tony Stark?" Gabriel interrupted, his eyes brightening as they had when they spotted Captain America's shield. "You're Tony Stark! I'm so stupid, I mean, not really, I just don't pay attention to the news that much but _everyone _saw what happened in New York, and then to your house and –"

"Gabriel, Miranda, go outside," Burlington cut him off. "Please, this is not for your ears."

"Haven't you wondered why the streak of bad luck, Federico?" Tony said casually, ignoring the boy's protests and the wife's adamant refusals to leave. "Why it all came crashing down? It's not a good feeling, having your entire life wrecked overnight, is it?"

Silence fell. Burlington clearly understood within seconds what Tony was implying, his eyes wide in astonishment.

The surprise came when Miranda raised a hand to her mouth, her own expression displaying the same comprehension as her husband's. She was intelligent, it made sense that she might put all their sudden misfortunes together and see that it was all no coincidence.

But Tony suddenly wondered how much she _really_ knew as she immediately confronted him. "Are you saying that you have . . . the taxes, and his work, the thieves stealing his great-grandparents' treasures, all of it was _you_?"

Burlington grabbed his wife's hand. "Miranda, stop –"

"What right do you have?" she said, full of righteous indignation. Her light brown eyes were narrowing, and she marched right up to Tony, her hands gesticulating wildly. "Because you are wealthy, powerful, you feel you can control the world, don't you? You can do what those horrible people did, what Hydra did, and manipulate and cheat and steal from those you consider _inferior_!"

Miranda Burlington was a professor of sociology. She was both media and computer savvy. Tony cocked his head as he observed her flushed and angry face. Tony was very familiar with denial – Miranda Burlington reeked of it.

"Hydra took from me first, Señora Burlington." Tony looked over her shoulder. "Ask your husband what they took from me. Ask your husband what _he _took from me."

"Dad, is this why we're leaving? What is he saying, what's . . ." Gabriel trailed off, his confusion and fear plain on his features.

"Fedi, what is this? How does Tony Stark come to be here, come to destroy you? Tell him he's wrong, tell him he's made a mistake." Miranda was desperate. Oh, she definitely knew, maybe not at all of it, but she _knew_.

Burlington stared at his wife, saying nothing. Any lie he spewed out would be immediately destroyed, and he knew it. Tony felt a vicious thrill at being here to see this.

"You only need to search his birth name, which isn't Federico Burlington." Tony reached into the purse she'd thrown onto a nearby armchair, fished out her phone and tossed it to her. She grabbed it out of the air. "Ignacio Borell will lead you to Agent Pedro Escobar. Three names, one and the same person. Agent Pedro Escobar made the lead on Operation Bold. Operation Bold was a successful mission, went off without a hitch. Your husband was a very good assassin."

Gabriel choked on whatever words he'd been about to say. His mother was motionless, and so the boy reached over and ripped the phone from her hands. He tapped frantically as Miranda faced her husband, the denial falling away, heartbroken resignation rising to take its place. She shook her head and clutched at her shirt, at her hair, and behind her, her son was reading the truth, his face paling more and more as silent minutes passed them by.

A bright laugh cut through the tension. Tony could see through a crack in the curtains a flash of silver, blue and red. Through the slightly open backdoor Tony could hear children shouting, giggling, and Steve issuing orders in a warm, affectionate voice. A cool night breeze swept through the room.

Gabriel abruptly sat down on the nearest surface, an end table next to the armchair, and his hands hung listlessly in his lap. His gray face was slack with shock. When he spoke, it was hardly more than a whisper. "Dad . . . you . . . your name. You're not . . . you killed people for them. For . . . for Hydra."

Tony watched this family fall apart. His sadistic gratification simmered beneath his calm veneer, but rising up with it was a sick sensation, equally hot and potent.

"I did what I did because I thought it was best," Burlington spoke at last in his native tongue. Tony was mildly impressed. The man stood up straight, his features gone hard and cold. A gun had appeared from seemingly nowhere. There was the assassin Tony had come to see. "I had to believe it then, though I may not believe it now. I will not apologize because I know it will not serve anyone but myself, and that is not what they need to hear right now."

Burlington moved to stand next to his sobbing wife, but she stepped away, reaching out for her son who immediately fell into her arms. Burlington acted as though this did not faze him, and maybe it didn't, Tony couldn't tell. "Your father was a threat. I did what I was told. He was not the first nor was he the last. And I cannot allow you to destroy me now. I got away for years, Mr. Stark, and I will get away again."

"Dad, no, no, please!" Gabriel ran between Tony and his father again – but this time the threat was clear. Burlington's gun did not tremble when aimed at his child.

"If you think you can point a gun at me with Captain America less than twenty feet away" – and that wasn't mentioning Tony's own little surprises, one resting beneath the carpet, and another one up his sleeve – "you are not a very smart assassin. Been a few years for you, right? It's a little different, I imagine, killing someone in front of your family."

"Dad, stop!" Gabriel, brave kid that he was, walked right up to the gun, let it press into his chest. "I don't care, I don't care what you've done, but if you do this now, I – I –"

"For the love of God, Federico!" Miranda cried out. "Enough bloodshed, it is over, please, do not make us watch you –"

Steve appeared in the doorway leading out to the backyard. His shield was poised to be thrown. Everything stopped.

The gun in Burlington's hand finally shook. Then it drooped. And then it fell to his side. Gabriel actually hugged his father, fiercely and unreservedly. Miranda was wiping away tears, looking as though she had aged a century.

Gabriel turned to Tony then, steely resolve in his eyes. "Please, Mr. Stark. Let us leave."

"No." Tony had never heard his voice sound so harsh. "No, not going to happen."

"It was so long ago, Mr. Stark, and I'm sorry. But I don't want to grow up without my father." Gabriel's words cracked in the middle. "He promised, you know, to be there when I graduate. He's going to publish my first book on the Spanish Civil War. We've been designing covers and arguing about font size for years."

"And you can keep doing that while he's in a cell." Tony was not moved.

"Mr. Stark." A tear slipped down the boy's face. "Please –"

"Did you read your father's file? Do you understand what he's done, what he's gotten away with?" The gauntlet concealed under Tony's sleeve was warm. "Do you know that my mother had a punctured lung? She didn't die right away, she drowned in her own blood with my father's still-warm corpse to keep her company –"

"Tony." Steve's commanding tone wasn't enough.

"I was never allowed to tinker with my dad's cars," Tony said to the air above Gabriel's head, not sure who he was talking to now, "only old junkers he bought for me to take apart, but maybe if I had broken that rule, considering that I broke so many of his other rules, _your _dad might not have succeeded. Do you think years of doubt and guilt, of re-reading the crash report and imagining every single painful scenario, all of that somehow becomes null and void because _you don't want to lose your father? God damn it all, I didn't want to lose my parents either!_"

An explosion. Tony hadn't realized his gauntlet was up and pointed at Burlington, which meant he definitely didn't see Steve fling himself, shield first, in front of Tony's outstretched arm, redirecting the blast over their heads. The smoke bomb Tony had concealed went off a split second later, at the same time as Interpol broke down the door.

Screaming children came pouring in from the backyard. Burlington had thrown himself on top of Gabriel; Miranda had been running towards Tony, but she tripped when the smoke bomb went off. She was on the floor, next to her husband, and kneeling up to gather her frightened younger children into her arms.

The Interpol agents didn't seem to know where to point their guns, but once the smoke had cleared a little, they spotted Steve, who was clearly recognizable because of the shield.

"Thank you, Captain," said a tall muscular woman, her strong hand reaching to shake Steve's. "We found our mole. We'll take Burlington into custody."

The man in question was already being cuffed. Gabriel was standing up, no longer pleading for his father, just silently standing guard over his mother and his younger siblings. The other kids started crying as the agents led Burlington out the door. The smallest girl clutched at her father's coat, little hands tugging.

Steve leaned down and gently pried her fingers loose. "Go to your mother, Ceci."

Burlington looked back at his family, his eyes wet, but no tears fell. When his gaze fell onto Tony, there was nothing there. No anger, no remorse.

"We should leave," Steve said.

Interpol agents were speaking to Miranda now, helping her off the floor. Gabriel ushered his brother and sisters out of the living room. Before he left, he turned to Tony. Much like his father, his eyes held no anger, no regret, but he did have something else to offer.

"I'm sorry," Gabriel whispered. "He wouldn't say it, but I will. _I'm sorry_."

Tony didn't need any more prompting to leave after that.

* * *

When they reached the private hanger where Tony's jet was waiting for them, Tony stopped before entering the plane. He stared at the wing over Steve's head. Then he asked, "When did you call them?"

"About two minutes after I took the kids outside. JARVIS gave me the information on who tipped off Burlington. I called Interpol and made sure to talk directly to the head investigator of the case. They should have gotten there faster."

Finally a hint of disapproval, but it wasn't directed at Tony. "You could have stopped me, Steve, you could have damn well stopped me at any goddamn point."

"I did stop you when you lost control," Steve pointed out. "And I called Interpol because that was the original plan, to have them be the ones to take him in. Or were you planning on something else?"

Tony considered lying. But he had an inkling that Steve already knew what he was going to say. "I did have a back-up plan. The gauntlet and the smoke bomb. It was meant to be quick. And his family wasn't meant to be there."

Steve exhaled slowly. "All right. It's done now. We move on to the next target."

"Are you fucking kidding me, right now?" Tony erupted, flushing and gearing up for a fight. "What's happened to you, Rogers, why are you –"

"You don't actually know me that well, Stark," Steve said, his voice veering into his battlefield command tone. "I was a soldier. I was a leader, and I had a squad of talented men that I was responsible for. We killed people when we had to, and maybe a few times when we didn't – when after the smoke cleared, it wasn't a man with a gun, but someone waving a white flag. I know there's evil, true evil, in this world. But I also know that there are bad people that aren't bad to their families. That love dogs or cook up a mean omelette for their kids."

Tony reeled back from these words, more words than Steve had ever spoken to him in one sitting, and then he came back swinging. "And what kind of naive schmuck do you think I am? I was the Merchant of Death, Steve. I killed a half dozen men all at once to save the women and children they held hostage." And spent the entire night afterwards kneeling in front of the toilet because the wet explosion of skull and brain matter had left him feeling so _satisfied_. "I killed Obadiah Stane. No due process, no day in court. I'm already a murderer, so tell me why, when it's this damn personal, _why I can't fucking finish it_."

Steve grabbed one of Tony's arms, preventing him from pacing or pulling away. He waited patiently as Tony struggled for a second, realized the futility, and then stilled. Tony pulled in a long breath and lifted his gaze to Steve, who seemed to take that as his cue to keep going.

"You're not a bad man, Tony, you're a hurting one. The people we're after right now? They're bad, and we're going to get them. But I will stop you from killing them. They are waving white flags at you. You've already beaten them. Exorcise whatever demons you have, tear them down in front of their kids if you must" – there it was, _at last, _a distinct note of sadness – "but keep your hands clean and when this is done, maybe you'll sleep better. I don't know if I will, but I can at least know that Howard's killers are finally paying for their crimes."

Steve seemed to deflate a bit after that long speech, taking in a deep breath and shrinking on the exhale. "And Tony, you killed those men because you had to. Stane didn't leave you a choice either. But you don't – and I hope you never do – know what it is to kill someone deliberately. Intimately. It does something to a person, and trust me, I've seen the damage up close. I've fought against it, long before you were born."

Captain Steve Rogers looked every bit of his ninety years of age then.

Out of nowhere, Tony wondered how, if Steve did end up finding Barnes, he was going to help the Winter Soldier rationalize decades of cold-blooded murder.

It wasn't Barnes' fault, insofar as one didn't blame a gun for the act of pointing and firing; Barnes was a living, breathing weapon. But Tony thought that finding the Winter Soldier and reminding him of his humanity would be, perhaps, a far worse punishment than what any court could devise. Would it satisfy the families of his victims? Tony felt a sick twist in his gut as considered what he would have done if Barnes _had_ been responsible for his parents' death.

Tony contemplated being as remote and unfeeling as the Winter Soldier, so he could finish balancing out his equation as if human lives could be reduced to numbers and letters on a page. Could he escape the personal penalty of deliberate murder if Tony felt he was _right_? He wasn't an assassin tortured and brainwashed, he didn't have any excuse other than revenge. Justice. Keeping bad people from doing bad things.

Tony's moral compass rarely gave him clear readings on his best days.

But Tony had shivered and vomited for hours after murdering men who killed women and children, even though he had felt completely justified in doing so. There had been nothing left of Obadiah after the reactor overloaded, but Tony made sure the man had a funeral, a headstone, and he'd visited once.

_Fuck it, _this was too much thinking for one day and not the kind of thinking his brilliant mind was accustomed to. Tony couldn't waste precious energy trying to puzzle out the moral conundrums that had baffled humanity for ages.

He offered up a small, pathetic smile. "Cap, you wanna join me for some drinks on our way to London?"

Because alcohol. Full stop, no elaboration required.

Steve's answering smile was bittersweet, his eyes gazing at something Tony couldn't see. "My metabolism burns it up before I can get a good buzz going."

"Pfft, that's only because you've never had one of _my _cocktails." He gestured awkwardly towards the plane, and Steve walked in ahead of him.

They talked for the entire plane ride. The conversation was stilted, it was strange and it sometimes stuttered to halt when Tony accidentally stepped on an old memory involving Bucky, or when Steve tried to tell happy stories about Howard that Tony simply couldn't relate to.

But it was all truth, all groundwork, and Tony could see himself following this man into battle. Again. And considering how broken his moral compass was, maybe he could trust Steve to point him instead.

Though Tony reserved the right to forget everything and just pull the damn trigger to end this, once and for all. Tony always did have a talent for self-destruction.

* * *

**Author's Note: **It's been a very long day for me, and I think it shows in this chapter. The angst levels rose rather high in this one. Please let me know if there are any mistakes, I didn't proofread as much as I normally do.

Okay, third chapter down, two more to go. And then hopefully I'll get to watch _Age of Ultron_ at some point this weekend.

While you may be sick of hearing it, I have to say thank you again for reading! Hope you enjoyed today's installment, and see you tomorrow :)


	4. If You Want Blood (You Got It)

**Chapter 4: If You Want Blood (You Got It)**

* * *

When they were an hour from landing in London, Tony handed Steve his tablet with a picture displayed on it. The woman in it was wearing dark sunglasses, her long black hair heavily streaked with grey. Her lips were curved up in a slight smirk as she got into a grey car, calloused hands holding the door open.

"Adri Kadakia, birth name unknown. There are rumours may be from Goa, but there isn't much on her, even in Hydra's files." Tony downed his last drink. "She pulled the trigger, whatever the damn trigger was, since I still don't know how she did it. She was labelled as wetworks, which is –"

"I know." Steve's jaw clenched.

Steve's mask of indifference had fallen now, and to Tony's relief, it seemed to be gone for good. Tony needed the good Captain – he could see the varying paths this mission could have taken without Steve at his side. Tony didn't fair well in most of them.

"She seems like someone hard to track – why didn't you go after her first?" Steve was studying the intel, his eyes scanning the words and committing them to memory like he had the various other pieces of information Tony brought before him.

Tony had access to everything on Project Rebirth now; he hadn't done more than give it all a cursory glance, but one the scientist's files did mention that Steve's brain had remained largely unaffected. The Captain had a good head on his shoulders, serum or no serum.

In other words, Tony had fucked up majorly when he'd insulted Steve on the first day they met. But now was not the time to rehash old mistakes. At least, not Tony's old mistakes.

"I was waiting for some solid info. She's been laying low in a few places, always on the move. To be honest, I'm not one hundred percent sure she's even here right now, but I found an account under Rita Patel that _might _be Kadakia's. JARVIS got something from it. As of five hours ago, 'Rita' withdrew from that account at a bank near Brixton, and there's an apartment there under that same name."

Tony indicated the tablet, and Steve slid his fingers across the screen, flipping to a map that had the location of Kadakia's loft apartment marked in red. "Part of the reason why I'm pretty sure she's here, though, is because of the RHS Hampton Court Show. She has a thing for flowers."

Steve cocked his head. "What, she leave them on her victims' bodies?"

"Nothing so cliché – a couple of her old haunts had gardens that she worked in. One of her aliases had a botany degree – I'm thinking the degree wasn't fake."

Steve's fingers slid to another old photo of Kadakia, the young, (possibly) Indian woman surrounded by hydrangeas, her smile gentle and her eyes dark. He put down the tablet and looked up at Tony. "We're going to need to go in armed and ready. She's not Burlington, she's been active all this time, on Hydra's payroll."

"Hey, you and me, we've survived sparring matches with _Natasha_ – we can handle this old lady. I think it's time I show you my prep room."

Tony stood up and walked over to the small back area of the plane, moving a panel from the wall with a quick flurry of finger presses against a concealed keypad. A ladder was revealed and Tony gestured towards to Steve to take the lead.

Steve whistled when he got the bottom and saw what Tony had been hiding.

"It's where I hang out for long flights, and where I hide from Captain America's snoring."

The Captain in question pointed at Tony. "_I _don't snore. And I figured you had some crazy luxurious bedroom hidden, which means that since you _don't, _you haven't been sleeping every time you disappeared."

"Eh, I sleep like you charge a phone's batteries – wait till it's practically dead, _then _plug it in for a day. Works for me."

Steve seemed like he wanted to say something to that, but settled on just sighing and moving on to exploring. The entire lower half of the plane was a makeshift lab and arsenal. Tony brought two of his suits, one of them being the stealth suit, the other being the Mark VII. And for Steve, he'd brought a few handguns and heavy rifles, uncertain of what the Captain would prefer.

Steve, interestingly enough, was gravitating towards the knife display. When Tony gave him a questioning look, he explained, "Like you said – been training with Natasha. She's, uh, taught me a lot about knife fighting."

"Probably in incredibly painful ways," Tony commented with a grimace. "Take your pick. The more concealable, the better."

"What about you?" Steve nodded towards the Mark VII. "Not exactly subtle."

Tony held up his wrists, the silver bands on them glinting. "The suit's going to be stashed nearby, and it'll come when I need it. Until then, you better cover my ass, Rogers."

Steve grinned. "Considering how expensive it is, it's probably in my best interest to do so."

Tony gave a smug smirk in return. "I'm worth every damn penny, Captain, and I can give you written references that prove it."

"I'm pretty sure there's a lot of online videos to confirm it too, but I'll just go with taking your word for it," Steve said, his own smile edging into smug territory.

Tony blinked in surprise. Steve knew about online videos? Steve knew about online _sex tapes_? Tony had never considered the fact that Steve might Google him with the safe search feature turned _off. _Well, it was a good thing that Tony had broken his own ability to be ashamed at a very young age – and that he had wiped some of his worst caught-on-camera offences clean off the web.

Steve picked two long knives and a couple of small semi-automatic pistols, the latter of which he proceeded to take apart in order to inspect and clean. Tony did some prep work on his armour. They worked in companionable silence.

The silence gave Tony time to reflect upon what he was about to do. Two men were in jail, their lives destroyed. Tony didn't know if he was satisfied with that. There were ways to get to them, even now that they were in custody, but a gut-wrenching twist of his insides told him his chances with Dweck and Burlington had passed.

It would have to do. It had to be enough.

"You weren't close to Howard at all, were you?"

The question came so out of the blue that Tony actually dropped the gauntlet he had been tinkering with.

Steve's eyes were trained on Tony, unmoving and unblinking. "Howard wasn't a good father."

Interesting how Steve said it so matter-of-factly. While some people knew that Tony Stark had daddy issues, very few understood how deeply rooted these issues were.

"Howard . . ." Tony stopped, and then decided that Steve, considering his past with Howard and his present with Tony, had earned the right to hear the truth.

"Howard never hit me, never starved me. He also never hugged me, not that I can remember, or told me he loved me." Tony went back to tinkering with his gauntlet. "He liked to teach me, to tell me stories about the war, about you, but he didn't like to talk about _me _outside of our science hang-outs or World War II reminiscing_. _The first time I drew up a schematic that _he _didn't understand, I was ten years old. I don't know if he resented me or if he was confused by me, if he didn't get how I could be so much like him but _not_. Who the hell knows? Maybe he was a fuck-up like me, and didn't know how to deal with a smaller, messier version of himself."

Steve acknowledged this with a faint smile, though now it was tinged with sadness. "What about your mother, Maria?"

"Mom took no shit from anybody, especially Stark men." Tony flashed a movie star grin. "She always knew when I was lying, or when something was about to blow up. She fought to keep me home when my dad decided to ship me off to boarding school, and when she lost that fight, she wrote to me every week. Once I used a necklace of hers to add a silver component to – doesn't matter, but the point was that it was a family heirloom, and she didn't even tell me what it meant to her until after I'd destroyed it. She said it was just a _thing_, and what I was creating was worth sacrificing a few _things._ I like to believe she was talking about more than the necklace, but I don't know."

Tony hadn't realized how much he'd been rambling until he stopped. He glanced back up Steve and saw the other man leaning against the gun rack, completely focused on Tony to the exclusion of all else. Not that there was much else to stare at.

Tony cleared his throat, putting the gauntlet away and spreading his hands out on the tabletop. "I think that's enough therapy for today, Cap. Let's get this show on the road."

"Right." Steve pushed himself off the wall. "I'll get suited up. I brought my own stealth gear, though the shield's gonna be a tough thing to hide."

"I can attach it to the armour," Tony said, looking back towards the Mark VII. "Won't need too much time to adjust for the added weight and shape. JARVIS, run a few simulations for me."

"Right away, sir."

After they put the finishing touches on their gear, Steve reached over to Tony. His hand rested on Tony's shoulder, squeezing firmly.

"I'm glad to be doing this for Howard, for his wife, but you and me, that's the here and now. You drive me up the wall, you confuse me a heck of a lot, but you're a good man, separate and different from Howard. I look forward to figuring you out, Tony Stark." Steve's hand squeezed once and then let go.

Tony had no idea what to say to any of that.

He cleared his throat for the second time in as many minutes and tried for one of his smirks. It was probably more a weak sort of smile.

The plane had been circling the landing strip for a while, according to JARVIS. Before he and Steve made their way to their seats, Tony's hand shot out of its own accord, grabbing Steve's forearm.

Steve waited patiently as Tony struggled to find his words.

"When this is over, we're going hunting, you and me. I've got Bruce Banner back at my tower, and more science-y type knowledge than you can shake a stupid magic glowing stick at. We'll find Barnes, and we'll figure out a way to help him."

The gratitude that filled Steve's face was just a little too much for Tony. He let go of Steve's arm and practically ran back to his seat.

They landed a few minutes later, and then it was all strategizing and stakeouts until the next night, when everything went to hell.

* * *

"Fuck me, she's _gone._" Tony threw his beer against the wall outside of Kadakia's loft. "I was _wrong. _Damn it, she's probably halfway to China or Zimbabwe, or _anywhere but here._"

Steve handed Tony his own empty beer bottle. Tony smashed that too.

The beers had come after JARVIS informed him that Rita Patel had cleaned out her account from a bank in _Liverpool, _before the name 'Rita Patel' abruptly disappeared into nonexistence.

"You weren't wrong, Tony, she _was _here." Steve took a sip from a new bottle of beer, staring up at the windows of the empty apartment. "She just managed to slip away. We'll find her. You, me, and JARVIS – there's no way she can evade us forever."

"Fucking damn it, I had _her._"

"And _we will find her._" Steve held his bottle out of reach when Tony tried to swipe it. "Let's go back to the jet, catch some shut-eye. We've been out here for" – Steve checked his wristwatch – "nearly nine hours. I think we deserve the break."

"Especially since it was _all for nothing._"

Steve didn't reply, just gave Tony a light shove towards their rental car, parked a block or so over, and then bent to pick up their remaining beer.

Steve drove, because while Tony wasn't drunk, he was so angry at the world he might as well have been. His lack of subtlety had cost him his parents' murderer. But they had just missed her by_ three hours._ She was probably still in the country, though on her way out, and Tony had no idea what means of transport she'd take or if – wait. Wait, _wait._

"Wait what?" Steve glanced over at him, looking worried.

Tony hadn't realized that he'd spoken aloud. "Steve, go to the palace."

"The what?"

"Hampton Court Palace." Tony was rubbing his wristbands, a flash flood of adrenaline giving him the shakes. "She might be there. She might go to see the damn flowers before she leaves."

Steve pressed down on the accelerator and broke the speed limit.

They pulled into palace grounds in what seemed like only five minutes. Tony knew there had to be some night guards or someone around. Or there should be. It was black outside, a few lights on the perimeter, but almost nothing further up the drive towards the palace itself.

Steve moved so quietly it was a little disconcerting. Tony knew he wasn't quite so stealthy. A little ways in, they found their first casualty.

One of the night guards, a small but sturdy woman, was crumpled behind a bush, her neck broken. Steve took her pulse regardless, and then reached over to close her unseeing eyes.

"She's warm," was all he said when he straightened up to look at Tony.

Tony stared back, pressing on his wristbands. The armour was in the car. It would take less than ten seconds to arrive.

But it was too late.

"_Tony!_" Steve had pushed him down, using his body as a shield at the same time that a series of silenced bullets sprayed the ground where Tony had just been standing.

The gun that fired at them was silenced, the shots coming out like small, sharp puffs of condensed air, high pitched and accurate. Steve grabbed Tony by the back of his shirt, dragged him into the nearest building.

Whereupon they stumbled over a tripwire.

The wire pulled the pin, the Mark VII burst in through a window, and Tony shouted, "_Guard!"_

The armour formed itself and found the grenade, throwing itself toward it. The explosion rattled Tony's bones, rendered him deaf for a few precious seconds, but he was alive. Steve was crouched low, sliding across the debris to grab his shield from the Mark VII's back.

The armour was mostly intact, but Tony wasn't going to use it. Instead, he pressed a different sequence into his wristbands. The Mark VII shot out of the remains of brick and mortar, hovering over them, surveying the land.

The hum of the repulsors was the only sound for a time.

Tony didn't move, didn't breathe, just waited.

A shot was fired. Tony ducked, Steve brought up his shield, but the shot wasn't aimed at them.

The suit clattered to the ground in front of them, powerless. Useless. A device was attached to the arc reactor, had shut it down completely.

Tony stared at it, and then, even as Steve said "No, _don't_," Tony stood up, knowing that he was clearly visible to their adversary.

"Neat trick," he said, not bothering to shout. "And a fairly new trick too."

"They had been working on it for some time, my former employers."

Her voice had pleasant lilt to it, a combination of accents and a husky, weathered charm. He couldn't tell from where it was coming from, only that it wasn't too close by – but close enough. "A shame they didn't get to use it on me – I assume that was the original intention. To kill me, outside of the suit."

"Yes. But you are flesh and blood once more, little Stark. If I desired your death, more conventional means will serve."

Steve stood then, his shield held up to his chest. "Won't be as easy as you think." His eyes scanned everything around them. There were a couple of smaller buildings surrounding them. She could be in or on any of them. Steve's pistols were fairly useless without a target to aim them at.

A second shot.

Steve released a smoke grenade at the same time he dropped to the ground and swept Tony's feet out from under him. It was faster than Tony hitting the floor himself, and in that time, his stealth suit, which had been quietly hovering for the past thirty seconds, formed around him. He waited for the smoke to dissipate. Steve had rolled a few feet away, hiding behind a crumbling brick wall.

"Interesting. You two work well together."

"We Avengers do that," Steve said conversationally. "Should be making you nervous right about now."

The smoke had dissipated enough for Tony to move through it without giving away his location. Tony rose up into the air, keeping one eye on Steve while the rest of his sensors sought the woman.

And he found her. Kadakia must have been in her sixties at least, but she was spry as ever. She was resting comfortably in a tree, right next to a building directly across from Steve's location. Her hair hung in a loose bun on the left side of her head, and she wore black camouflage gear that had many pockets, likely concealing a plethora of weapons.

As Tony calculated his best angle of approach, she reached into one of those pockets – another grenade. She threw it, but Tony had seen Steve switch cover already. The explosion sent pieces of brick flying everywhere, but Steve just bunkered down next to another partially destroyed wall. The Captain stayed low, stayed silent, and waited.

"JARVIS, any readings on that device that shut down the reactor?"

"None, but there are two electronic signatures attached to other devices of unknown purpose."

JARVIS brought scans up – basic schematics, no detail, and so he couldn't discern what they could do. But as of yet, Kadakia hadn't detected him. He could end this without her ever seeing him. Fast, like his father died.

Or, seventeen minutes, drowning in blood.

Tony was behind her. He had been behind her for a few seconds now.

He was going to kill her.

He reached an arm out, an arm he could see only through his sensors. He didn't want to shoot. He didn't want fire his repulsors. He wanted to get his hands on her.

"Do you know how I killed your parents, little Stark?"

Tony froze.

"The car. There was nothing in car, correct?"

"No, Tony. You know it's all just mind games," Steve said, breaking his cover.

She didn't bother firing at Steve, just turned around to face _exactly where Tony was hovering._

"Shit."

That was all Tony got to say before she was jamming Unknown Device A into his outstretched arm. And then he was on fire – not literally, but the temperature inside his armour was shooting up extremely fast and increasing exponentially by the second.

"JARVIS!"

"She's attempting to overload the suit – our defenses are absorbing the charge, but it appears the heat containment for the repulsors and stealth engine –"

"Yeah, got it!" Sweat was running into his eyes, breathing was becoming difficult. "Stealth and filters off!" Tony's helmet slid off and he found himself eye-to-eye with Adri Kadakia.

But not for long. She jabbed at him again, quicker than a blink, with a blackened knife he saw only after it had sliced into his cheek. He had managed to turn away and avoid getting blinded. She brought up Unknown Device B and Tony was _not _eager to find out what it would do.

He powered himself away from her, and then swung back around, weaving through the branches. Kadakia kicked out with her foot as he flew towards her, and Tony grabbed it, intending to knock her out against the trunk of the tree – instead, he ended up with her legs wrapped around his torso and one of his arms. She had her knife pressed against his jugular, her other hand pinning his other arm behind his back.

"I want to tell you how I did it," she said directly into his ear. Her words echoed in the stillness of the palace grounds. "It was not my best job. Our team leader was extremely efficient, ruthless, but not very good at improvising. Our inside man was smart, but he failed to get me access to the car – your father so closely guarded his metal toys."

Tony grit his teeth, attempting to get his hands free, but the knife bit into his neck deeply. A stream of blood dribbled down, the pain a brief burst of sensation that stood out against his sudden numbness. She didn't tell him not to move. She didn't have to. And Tony didn't use his considerable brain mass to come up with a plan, because he was an idiot.

Because he had to know.

"Instead, our inside man fed me some valuable information – about your father's preferred drinks. His usual route home. His once-a-month outings with your mother. She would meet him at the office, he would leave early, and they would have dinner."

His mother usually wore light, understated jewellery, and then dressed with bold colours for those dinners. Tony had picture albums where half the photos were of Maria and Howard Stark out for some fine dining – he could tell when they'd been fighting, because she would smile without showing her teeth, her eyes glancing off to the side.

"Take another step, Captain. He is bleeding already, it would take very little to finish him."

Tony hadn't even noticed that Steve was on the approach. He couldn't see him – his eyes were extremely crappy at night – but he caught a glint of the shield. Steve stopped moving.

Kadakia kept narrating.

"The roads were so very icy, you see. Icier after I rerouted the salt trucks. Maria met your father, just as he finished his after-work glass of scotch. It took maybe ten or so minutes for the toxin to work – the dosage was well-timed, they reached my ice patch as your father died, the car spinning, but your mother, she almost managed to get the car under control – and so I shot her through the lung. Very clean, bullet went right through. It angered me to have to do it – it would have been such a perfectly untraceable accident. Well, I suppose it still was, in a way."

Poisoned. Shot. Autopsy report. Faked. Bullet probably lost in the wreckage, inconsequential metal slag.

"I had to make sure – left my perch. There wasn't much left of your father. But your mother was alive."

Hot tears and cold sweat mingled on Tony's face. He growled out words that held no meaning, let his rage flare up. He made one sharp move and the knife sliced again, more blood spilling over Kadakia's hand.

"She was barely breathing, every inhale wet, cracked – she hadn't seen me. Your mother was not the main target. Eliminate if necessary, our orders were. I stood there. I considered calling the ambulance. She was beautiful, your mother, even broken. Maria Stark gave much hope and charity to the world."

"Stop," Steve demanded from his place somewhere in the darkness. "Why are you doing this?"

"But my mission was complete. I left Maria's life in fate's hands. Fate had no sympathy for a kind woman that day."

Tony closed his eyes tightly. An icy stretch of road was all he could see. "Fate is coming back for _you_ tonight."

He leaned into the knife and turned on his stealth engine. Instantly, the suit began to overheat again – Kadakia hissed as it burned her, and for the briefest of instants, the knife pulled away. Tony fired his repulsors, launching himself in Steve's general direction. Steve ripped Kadakia off as Tony blasted past, and he threw her to the ground, pinning her there as Tony turned everything off, tumbling head over heels into the well-manicured lawn.

"Tony?" Steve called.

"I'm alive." He wouldn't say that he was fine – that was too big of a lie even for him, and Steve wouldn't have believed it anyway.

"The police are close by. I called them."

"Figured the explosions would have brought them here sooner."

"They got a couple of calls – but someone phoned this morning, gave them a tip that a bunch of kids were planning to prank the police to show up at Hampton. I had to use my old S.H.I.E.L.D. codes to get them to believe me."

Tony stumbled over to Steve's side and stared down at Kadakia. She looked back at him, perfectly serene.

"Why did you let me find you here?" It had been her game from the moment Rita Patel appeared on Tony's radar.

"Why are you letting her into your head?" Steve asked, but he spoke quietly and let Kadakia have enough breathing room to answer Tony's question.

"Because, when Project Insight became priority, I would have been rendered obsolete upon its completion. No need for assassins when at the push of a button you could eliminate all threats everywhere. But then the Captain came along. The prized Asset failed for the first time. And I was _grateful. _You, Captain, you saved me."

Steve looked faintly ill for a moment, but after a blink, his hard, cold mask fell into place. "I saved innocent lives that day, and lost a whole lot of good people doing it. It wasn't so that you could keep killing. And you won't be killing anymore."

"Believe what you must, Captain, but save me you did. In repayment, I aimed to maim, not kill, mostly to slow you down so that I could speak with Stark. Little Stark, I wanted only to still you so that I could tell you about your parents as a small act of regret for Maria. I did hope that perhaps the medics would reach her in time. It was a shame they did not."

Tony fired a repulsor less than an inch from her head.

It scorched her skin a little, but did no other damage. She hadn't flinched. Neither had Steve, though his eyes shifted from his captive to Tony, flicking over from his face to his bleeding neck.

Tony fell to his knees next to Kadakia. "You're _letting _us catch you as some fucked-up _thank you? _And I'm guessing once you feel like you've been in the time-out corner long enough, you'll just _leave _the triple-max, high-security prison we're shoving you into?"

"Perhaps – I am getting older, this may also be my official retirement."

Whatever she claimed about seeking to maim and not murder, she had almost killed Tony and Steve twice in less than half an hour, and she had killed at least one guard. She nearly gouged his eyes out with a knife just so she could _speak_ with him? He did not believe a word she said, especially about his mother. She was a sociopath. A fucking incomprehensible lunatic.

The wail of sirens could finally be heard. Tony leaned in, his nose almost brushing hers. Her eyes were black, her breathing even.

"Do me a favour? Break out of prison. Because I need an excuse to fire this at your head and not miss."

"Oh, Anthony, you are not like Romanov or Burlington, or myself – you cannot make yourself a killer. But I shall look forward to the chase. Perhaps you will prove me wrong."

And then they were being swarmed by Scotland Yard, the S.I.S., and several other badges that Tony didn't care to put names to. Steve stood up and allowed Kadakia to be taken away.

Tony had blood drying against his throat, paramedics hesitating a few feet from him. Steve came to his side but said nothing. Tony would eventually allow himself to be examined by the medics, though he would refuse a ride to the hospital. He would gather up his Mark VII armour. He would put away the stealth armour and ignore every police officer and agent that wanted to ask questions, abandoning Steve in their midst.

But before any of that happened, Tony simply stood still, unmoving, watching the car holding the last of his vengeance drive away into the night.

* * *

Tony was in the jet's lab, running diagnostics on the Mark VII, occasionally scratching at the bandages on his neck.

"You open that cut and I'm turning this jet around and landing it in the nearest hospital."

He looked up to see Steve standing alarmingly close. Tony hadn't even heard him come down the ladder.

"Yeah, well, I'll just hop in my armour and fly the rest of the way home." Tony prodded the Mark VII and the arc reactor lit up to emphasize his point. "It wasn't a power drainage, it was a disruptor of some kind – not quite EMP, more mechanical, it actually got into the casing and –"

Tony abruptly cut himself off, but Steve gestured at him to go on. Tony experienced one of his rare moments of total confusion.

"Okay, no, why aren't you stopping me? This is usually the point where people, people who aren't paid to work for me or who aren't Bruce, stop me."

"It's interesting. It's also important to know how this works so we can prevent it from ever happening again." Steve flicked his gaze down to the armour. "If you still had the reactor in your chest, this could have killed you. Tell me everything about it, without the jargon."

"You're not going to question my state of mind, make me chat about my feelings? What about more memories of Howard? Or . . ." Tony couldn't bring himself to mention his mother out loud.

"_Do _you want to talk about any of those things?"

"Ah, I'll take 'hell, no' for a thousand, Alex."

"Then no questions. And I understood that reference."

Tony let out a bark of laughter, completely surprising himself. Steve smiled.

And so Tony talked science. Steve was smart, as Tony had long since realized, and he didn't need to have things explained more than twice, and twice only if Tony got a little too overly technical. They passed hours down in the lab, Tony taking apart some sections of the armour as part of his explanations. He showed Steve the physical latches in case Tony ever needed the armour removed in a situation where he and JARVIS were both out of commission. Steve made Tony repeat those instructions several times.

"If I'm down and out, but there's still enough energy for JARVIS to function, I'll give you access codes to remove lockdowns."

Steve's head rose up from where it had been bent close to one of the arms. "Does anyone else have access codes?"

"Pepper, Rhodey, and Happy."

Steve reeled back a bit. "Those are . . . Thank you for trusting me, Tony."

"It'd be kind of stupid not to trust Captain America."

"What about Iron Man?"

"It'd be kind of stupid to _even consider _trusting Iron Man," Tony said with his biggest, cheesiest grin. "But luckily Iron Man isn't in charge of the Avengers."

"I'm not in charge – it's a group dynamic," Steve immediately protested.

"Cap, we take _your _orders."

"And I take everyone's input, everyone's advice – you've issued a few orders of your own."

"I provide new information and strategies as they come up," Tony said. "Not quite the same thing. And I wouldn't want to lead this crazy bunch of kids anyway. I don't know if you noticed, but we're all more than a little unhinged. Strange. Downright alien in some cases."

Steve let out his own laugh, but he quickly became serious. "If we ever make this official, then I want it on file – Iron Man and Captain America, team leaders."

Tony fumbled his screwdriver. "What – why?"

"Because there's no one else I'd rather have fight beside me, Shellhead."

"_Shellhead? _No way is _that _becoming a thing. I refuse."

"Really, I don't get _one _nickname I can call you? You can call me anything and everything, including some pretty unflattering –"

"Right, never mind." Tony put the screwdriver down and gave Steve his full attention. "Cap, I don't know. I'm not much for leading the troops into certain death. I'm about cutting the wire, remember? Not much to me outside of the armour."

"Tony, we're talking theory right now. Keep fixing your armour. And don't talk about my friend Iron Man like that – he's a great man. A real hero." Steve hesitated. "I'd like to call him one of my close friends, soon. Once he lets down his shields." He raised an eyebrow. "That was a Star Trek reference, by the way."

Tony had to fight to keep a ridiculous grin off his face. "Fine, God, just stop it, you're giving me cavities. Save the sap for when my ego gets crushed or my ass gets kicked – both of which will happen next time I spar with Natasha." He picked up his screwdriver. "Hey, wanna give me a hand? I think you understand enough to help me put this all back together."

"Definitely – but before we do that, can I try one of those repulsors?"

Tony was pleasantly surprised yet again. "Yeah, we got an hour before we land. You should come by my lab in the tower some time – got plenty of toys you can play with."

While Steve made agreeing noises, Tony had a sudden thought – one that he'd had before, but hadn't found the right opportunity to explain. Tony opened his mouth, then closed it, then opened it again, and shut it, shaking his head. Steve put down the gauntlet he was about to try on. "What is it, Tony?"

"You, uh, got yourself another living situation set up?" Tony asked, staring down at one of the armour's legs. "Heard your place got trashed."

"Yeah, it did. Been running around Europe for the past while – haven't thought about looking for another apartment."

Tony wavered for a second, but then he rolled his eyes skyward at his own pathetic awkwardness, resolving his stupidity by simply asking, "Wanna move in?"

"Move in – with you?"

"Not _with me, _with me. There's plenty of room in that tower, you could have an _entire _floor to yourself. In fact, I was designing some plans, you know, after I made a Hulk-proof space for Bruce, and a crash pad for Thor. Just, whatever, it's an idea, feel free to disregard."

"Not whatever." Steve reached over and put a hand on Tony's shoulder, a gesture that was becoming very familiar. "Thank you, Tony, that's really great of you. How much –"

"No rent, no maintenance fees, don't you even try it, Steve. Save that money for funding Boy Scout troops, or buying punching bags – wait, no, forget that last one, I can absolutely design a punching bag that can stand up to Captain America. Or even better, one that'll _punch back._"

Steve's grin had grown wider and wider as Tony rambled, and so Tony decided that it was time to shoot shit, because he was not going to be subjected to any more gratitude.

"We'll say the line is here, I'll set up the bottles down there in the testing area. I'll take left, you take right, we'll switch part way – first to hit thirty bottles wins." Wanton destruction and an excuse to restock the liquor cabinet after they landed – Tony's idea of a good time.

"Wins what?" Steve asked, gauntlet already on.

"Respect. Bragging rights. A signed autograph from their favourite Avenger. And loser pays for lunch – I am dying for a burger."

"I know a place in Brooklyn," Steve said, watching his metal-covered fingers flex. "Burgers that'll give you a coronary from one bite."

"Perfect_._ Let's do this, Captain."

Steve grabbed Tony's arm as he moved to set up their impromptu firing range. "Wait. I have one more thing to say about what happened."

Tony stiffened. "All right. Hit me with it."

"You didn't kill Kadakia. I don't know how you feel about it, and you don't have to tell me, but I'm going to be selfish here and say that I'm glad I didn't have to watch a good friend do something terrible."

Tony didn't know how he felt about it either. There was some regret, a metric tonne of anger, and relief mixed in with dread that maybe it wasn't over. He wasn't sure which of these was the strongest, but right now, he could pinpoint one thing and cling to it: he just wanted to be _done._

"Okay. Now let's do some damage, Cap. Start with the wine, would you? It's a crappy vintage, and I only kept it because some of my so-called high-class business partners have _no taste._"

"All right, but let's keep the rum out of it. That stuff burned in the right way," Steve said.

"And what's the wrong kind of burn, Rogers?" Tony asked with an arched eyebrow.

"The kind that happens when I wipe the floor with you with your own invention, Stark." Steve powered up the gauntlet. "Bring out the wine."

"You familiar with _Casablanca, _Steve?"

"Yeah, but don't you say it – even I know that line has been used and abused far too often." Steve cast Tony a fond grin. "But I'm right there with you."

_Hopefully_, Tony thought to himself, in a deep, dark recess of his mind, _you'll be right there for a long while, Steve Rogers._

He let the darkness fall away and answered Steve's grin with a sincerely warm version of his own. He knew there was no easy comeback from the past few days, but he was about to blow up cheap wine and several hundred dollars' worth of champagne bottles with Captain America.

If there was a better cure for what ailed him, Tony couldn't think of it, and he was a Goddamn genius.

He fired his gauntlet, and if revenge had and had not been attained, if he had or had not done right by his parents, none of it mattered right then – he was standing next to Captain America, but he knew him better as Steve Rogers, and Tony's father would have liked this particular choice of Tony's; to be friends with the best man his dad had ever known.

And his mother would have done everything she could to mess up Steve's straight-laced image, probably in sneakier, subtler ways than Tony would.

The bottles exploded, wine painted the walls the red.

Tony was, in that laughing, loud moment, completely at peace with the world.

* * *

**Author's** **Note: **Thank you to OkamiPrincess over on AO3 for her idea to have Tony offer to take Steve on a journey to find Bucky :) Also, I know next to nothing about the Hampton Court Palace grounds – artistic license taken there!

All right, so I had trouble with this chapter – couldn't figure out Steve and Tony's conversations for the life of me. Then life kicked my butt all weekend – lots of work, some _Age of Ultron,_ a birthday, etc. But, here I am, and here's the penultimate part. There will be an epilogue, and then we're done!

Thanks for being patient, and hopefully the epilogue will be up some time in the next couple of days!

Oh, and in case some of you don't know, the line from _Casablanca _that Tony and Steve were referring to: _"I think this is the beginning of a beautiful friendship."_


	5. Epilogue: What Goes Around

**Epilogue**

* * *

_Two Months Later_

* * *

"Kadakia broke out."

Steve slammed a fist onto the kitchen counter in his apartment, but kept his expression calm – this was not about him; this was about Tony, and about finding a killer before she was hired by someone to kill again. "Well, I can't say that was unexpected. When do we move to find her?"

"We don't." Tony inhaled deeply, running a hand through already messy hair. "She wasn't out more than ten hours before they found her body. Shot cleanly through the heart."

He reached into his hoodie pocket and put a bullet on the table. Steve recognized the unique calibre immediately. He leaned forward and picked it up, running his fingers over it as if he could touch-read its secrets

"Bucky," Steve breathed out.

Tony nodded, his evaluating gaze focused on Steve's face. Steve knew he couldn't hide everything he was thinking – and most of what he was thinking _hurt. _

"Are there any leads?"

"Yes." Tony put something else on the table.

It was a picture, probably grabbed from some kind of surveillance camera – grainy, colours washed out, but there was Bucky, clearly featured in the bottom left corner. He was wearing dark clothes, a leather glove over his metal hand. He had both a backpack and a duffle bag slung over one shoulder, and his long hair was partially obscuring his face.

Three months ago, Steve and Sam had tracked him to France, where Bucky had destroyed a small Hydra cell and promptly vanished into thin air, no trace of him, trail gone cold. It was surreal to see him again knowing that he was back on home soil, casually walking from a gas station as if he hadn't just sniped a woman through the heart.

"There's another one of these at another gas station twenty miles north. And a third one thirty miles east of that."

Steve processed this information in two seconds flat. "He's leaving a trail. On purpose."

"Considering his fantastically terrifying skill at disappearing, I would say that's a definite yes. We're not the only ones looking for him, Steve."

Steve knew that, knew that Bucky wasn't just avoiding him, but avoiding everyone – remnants of Hydra; several government agencies, domestic and abroad, demanding his head; and a few criminal organizations that wanted, like Hydra, to recapture and use the Winter Soldier themselves.

"We're going to find him first." Steve cast a glance out of his windows – it was quite a view, here on the eighty-ninth floor, just below the gym and recreation areas, two floors below Tony's own apartment. Steve often lost hours standing and staring out at the New York skyline, especially on clear nights with what looked like more lights on the streets than stars in the sky.

Bucky was heading in this direction, and he was leaving a deliberate trail. That meant that someone, possibly more than one group, was already tracking him, and he was letting Steve know where he was because it was more than he could handle on his own.

Steve was going to find him, come hell or high water. And Steve was going to have the best help this century could offer.

"Got my latest Mark ready to go, and your new armour is waiting for you in the lab – what better test run, right?" Tony's smile had a sharp edge to it. "Do you think he killed Kadakia because it was the best way to get our attention, or because she was some kind of threat to him?"

"I'd like to think he wouldn't do it just because of the first reason, but this is . . . I'm going to say possibly both." Steve was well aware of the fact that his best friend had killed, and killed plenty, but that was Sergeant James Buchanan Barnes out there, not the Winter Soldier. Steve was going to bring Bucky home.

"I'll stick with that assumption too." Tony breathed out slowly, spreading his hands out on the dented countertop. "You want me to call in the other Avengers?"

"No, this one is just you and me." Steve did his own deep breathing, though adrenaline was already making him feel like a live wire. "There's no one else I would rather have with me on this."

"All right." Tony somehow managed to smile without actually lifting his lips up at the corners – something to do with his eyes, more expressive than most. "Let's go on another merry chase, Cap."

"Right behind you, Shellhead." Steve grinned as Tony groaned.

In very little time they were wrapped up in their respective armours and loading up onto the private jet. Tony was still in the process of testing his newer, faster quinjet design.

He reached for Steve's arm as the plane took off. "Your mission, your calls. And just so you know, they'll be no back talk from me this time. Unless you want it, you masochist."

"I want it," Steve said without thinking. "Smart-mouth aside, you've always got something to say that I want to hear. Sometimes that even includes your terrible jokes."

"I am _hilarious, _and once you've caught up on seventy years of pop culture, you will die laughing when reflecting back on my comedic genius_. _And also dead serious here, Steve. You tell me to back off, and I will."

His gaze was honest and intense. Their friendship had developed quickly, considering how antagonistically they had started out, and Steve hadn't anyone he'd come to like this much, this fast, since Bucky.

"I trust you to know when I need you to stay back," Steve said, and Tony nodded. "And right now, I want you to tell me everything you know about the Winter Soldier."

"I'm sure there's nothing I know that you haven't already read a hundred times over."

"Probably not, but I want to hear your take on it."

"JARVIS, bring up the . . ." Tony trailed off, pausing and levelling Steve with a rather grim stare. "Before we have our pow-wow, I gotta ask you – there's every chance Barnes' conditioning may be beyond our, or anyone's, ability to fix. Have you thought about what to do if -"

"He saved me. He can break whatever brainwashing they put him through. And we're gonna help him. No matter what it takes." There was silence from Tony. Steve dialled back his passion, giving the other man an apologetic look. "Listen, you're under no obligation, when I said _we, _I meant –"

"Stow it, Cap, _we _are going to save Barnes and give Hydra another kick in the ass when we do it. Those fuckers have taken enough from both us – I'm not letting them have this one." Tony summoned all the files he had on James Barnes and the Winter Soldier onto one of his large glass screens; this information included everything Tony had, alongside what Steve, Sam and Natasha had managed to dig up. "Let's plan the hell out this, and then be ready to throw all those plans out the window – I doubt Barnes is going to play by the rules."

"Something you two have in common," Steve said wryly. "And thank you, Tony."

"No, Cap, friends don't thank friends for doing the friend thing. Or so I've been told by my friends." Tony offered up a rare, fond expression before the very familiar larger-than-life grin took its place. "We're gonna go rescue the world's most terrifying assassin, and half the world's best agents and criminals are going to be right on his ass – and by extension, ours. You ready for this?"

Steve thought of Bucky here, with him. Of introducing Bucky to all the great and terrible wonders of the 21st century, to all the amazing people Steve counted as his friends. He thought of Bucky laughing at Tony's jokes, of Bucky attempting to take Tony down a peg and getting Tony to laugh in return. He imagined Bucky making one of those light, pithy comments that always held more truth than teasing.

Steve's determination rose up in him, strong and unflinching.

He had lost everything. He could get this back. He _would _damn well get this one thing back, so help him God.

"Iron Man, let's go kick some ass."

Tony's delighted laughter filled the jet. "Fuck yeah, Captain America."

Steve grinned, and even as the fear, the doubts, the guilt welled up in his gut, all he had to do was take in Tony's focused expression, his brilliant mind working double-time behind those dark eyes of his, and Steve knew that everything he imagined wasn't wishful thinking – it was the future he and Tony were setting into motion right there in that very instant.

Bucky Barnes was already home, he just didn't know it yet.

* * *

**Author's Note: **Finished! I didn't stick to my chapter-a-day promise, which was a lot harder than I realized it would be. Hopefully despite my lateness, some of you stuck around and still enjoyed this – I'm very grateful if you have :)

I have a crazy amount of half-finished fic waiting on my hard-drive, including some 80,000 words of Avengers fic, and the Daredevil bug has bitten me, so I'm writing some more for that show as well. *sigh* Marvel, what you do to me.

No idea when I'll be posting next, but when I do it will likely be one of those mentioned above, maybe a sequel to this. And while I adore Steve/Tony, I've been reading lots of Steve/Bucky too. *throws hands in the air* I don't know anymore – hell, maybe I'll dive into the Merlin fic I'm halfway through.

Being a nerd that loves many things is hard – except not, because yay for all the things we get to be nerdy about!

Many thanks to you readers, and to you commentators especially – feedback helps provide inspiration to keep writing, and occasionally changes the direction of the story (shout out to OkamiPrincess and ErinKenobi – you guys gave me wonderful ideas and insights! :D)

Thank you very much to all of you!


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